Month: August 2015

Since we’ve officially launched Candle Moments (and this baby is soon to be a month old), many people have asked us how we got started. I usually tell them about my mason jar overload, and then the story of our wedding cake. For most people, this satisfies their curiosity: they laugh, they cry, they maniacally gesticulate. Today, I had someone ask me about our slogan: Why “scents” the moment? I was so excited to explain, because this is truly the foundation of our company: The strongest sense connected to our memory is our olfactory sense, which is the sense of smell.

All of the greatest moments in life invigorate and entice our senses; this is how our brain processes and collects memory. It remembers based on what it saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and/or felt. The two senses humans rely on the most, our sense of sight and sound, are only part of our sensory memory. Our sense of smell, as scientists in Italy have discovered, is also directly associated with our sensory memory. Think of this – did you ever smell a really stinky cheese and think “ew, this smells like dirty gym socks!” The sensory memory is what scientists link to our emotional memory. We remember based on how we feel.

As How Stuff Works explains, we may associate the smell of chlorine with the summer-time, and for many people, this is probably a good feeling. The same could be applied for the “pumpkin spice” rage, or the scent of Christmas trees, cookies…the list goes on. Psych2Go elaborates that the sense of smell may be most closely related our memory because of childhood, where we rely predominately on our senses. They explain that our original basis for understanding the world comes from smell and taste, which we all know are directly related to one another.

Candle Moments’ main vision is to introduce scents as our sense of the moment, because as humans, that’s one of the main ways we formulate new memories and cherish the old ones.

We’re in the age where we can only manage if we’re managing ten things at once. Multi-taskers, rejoice! The lotion candle, or massage candle, is changing the way we view our beauty regiments and our home decor. Lotion candles act as both a beautiful piece of aromatic home decor, and they multi-task by morphing into a body lotion. No more are the days of making our home and bodies luxurious in two different stores, not even two different products; the lotion candle is for today’s hectic lifestyle.

Filled with natural soy, spa fragrance oil, vitamin e oil, coconut oil, and shea butter, Candle Moments has created the Renew Candle, which serves as both an aesthetic home candle, with an aromatic spa scent, and lotion! Once the candle has melted, let the wax cool slightly, and use the liquid to rub on your skin for a deeply nourishing and moisturizing lotion. This candle butter (as I like to call it) is a deep emollient infused with strong oils, so it’s best to use after a bath or shower, or before bed. A little goes a long way!

Many elite spas and massage therapists have begun using lotion candles to create a relaxing ambiance to both soothe the mind, and then the body. Along with the many known benefits of vitamin e, shea butter, and coconut oil, soy itself acts as a moisturizer and is a perfect conduit to maintain a warm enough temperature that it doesn’t burn the skin when used in massage.

You may find lotion candles to be more expensive than regular candles. The reason these candles cost more are because of the natural, raw materials used to create them. While pure soy is not extremely expensive, shea butter and 100% pure vitamin e oil is. The benefits of these ingredients far outweigh the cost, as many other lotions will use filler oils to avoid adding more natural ingredients – go ahead and check the ingredient list on the lotion bottle on your night-stand.

Always committed to purity, Candle Moments is opening up a whole new The Body Spa Collection for our clients who prefer cleaner products, where the ingredient list is completely recognizable. The Renew Candle was just the beginning; we also created the Refresh Lotion Candle which is scented like ocean mist. We only provide top-quality ingredients to ensure your skin is treated how it deserves to be.

The internet is bustling with information about soy. You can find equal amounts of articles against soy as you can for soy. The common vilification of soy usually arises from the consumption of soy, but hardly is the use of soy for non-consumable items discussed. At Bath, Body, Candle Moments, we use soy wax for all of our candles. We vary between Golden Wax Brands and Eco Soya Brands. The reasons we use soy wax over paraffin or beeswax are because of the value for the quantity, the sustainability, American Farmer support, it’s a renewable resource, and the scent-throw.

So how does soy wax benefit American Farmers? American Farmers are the #1 producer of soy beans in the world. Because it’s a completely renewable resource, once soy beans are picked, they can be harvested again. What does that mean exactly? It means that using soy beans doesn’t “steal” from the Earth; the harvest can be returned. Harvesting soy cannot claim to be 100% organic because it is necessary to use herbicides, pesticides, and GMMs while growing, but the finalized wax is FREE of these materials. While this idea may be a turn-off for some people – “Why would you grow using all of those unnatural resources?” – It’s important to realize the need for these in order to maintain healthy crops and keep jobs. This process has been perfected over the years, protecting the farmers and the needed crops. A great article on farmers practices is from Food Nutrition Science, which explains, in detail, how these are used.

How does soy wax compare against paraffin and beeswax? Paraffin is derived from petroleum, coal, or oil shale. This makes it completely non-renewable because paraffin comes from crude oil, which cannot be grown or manufactured; it must be elicited directly from the Earth. Because of this base, paraffin burns harsher, with more soot, and dirtier, meaning the chemical reaction between the burning and paraffin release toxins and carcinogens. Soy candles also produce soot, but if candles are cleaned correctly, they produce significantly less than paraffin. Beeswax is often boasted as having higher health benefits compared to soy, it also boasts that it does not require fragrances, but it doesn’t shed light on the abuse of bees. Creating beeswax is a natural process for bees, when done in stages, but bees harvested for beeswax are tricked with scents and false seasons to produce beeswax 24/7, thus destroying the life of the bee.

All in all, we believe in the use of soy wax for our candles. We do not claim to be 100% organic because we do use fragrance oils to create our amazing scents, but we can proudly say that we use the highest quality and most natural possible products to produce fragrant candles. Please remember, wherever you decide to buy candles, that if they have fragrance or color, no matter what type of wax it claims to be, it is NOT really organic.

As mentioned on our candles page, the olfactory sense is the sense most closely related to your memory. That means you are far more likely to remember how something smelled than the way it looked, sounded, or even tasted; it also means that smelling something familiar can trigger your brain into remember specific moments. This is why Candle Moments was created; we smelled cake, we remembered our wedding, it made us happy all over again.

But triggering memory is just one power of the olfactory sense; depending on the smells you are inhaling, it can create moods and emotions. For example, Lavender is well-known to create a sense of calm and enhance a relaxed state; Sandalwood has the same effect. We created the Weekend Getaway candle to enhance this exact mood. At the same time, Jasmine is known to create a sense of alertness, much like coffee. We have the She Said Yes candle which combines the calming effect of Lavender with the alertness of Jasmine.

You probably remember being dragged to, or suffering through, at least one plastic-ware or kitchen-ware party in your life. As much as we all love insights on how to make our lives in the kitchen easier, it’s hard to be tangibly and authentically interested in these items unless you’re in the process of actually using them. That’s why candles are the latest party trend!

Candle parties serve as a great opportunity to truly engage your guests. They get to physically interact with the product by not just touching it, but breathing deeply – experiencing the scents and memories attached to them. The need for demonstration is super limited (because we all know how to light a candle), though we may not all know how to properly care for a soy candle – which creates engaging content because we’re learning something new about an item we always thought we were experts at using!

If you’ve thought about having a small gathering lately and were looking for a fun and engaging theme, contact us about setting up a Candle Party. We’ll cheerfully answer all questions you may have and set up a fun night with friends!